March 2012

The Flower Press - - a newsletter of the Lincolnshire Garden Club March 2012

The Lincolnshire Garden Club

“Getting Dirty since 1958”

The Flower Press

Lincolnshire, Illinois March 2012

General Meeting and Program

Thursday, March 15, 2012

“Is it Time to Redo Your Garden?”

Presented by Maureen DiRienzo, DiRienzo Garden Designs

Local
landscape designer Maureen DiRienzo of Buffalo Grove will speak about
how to start the design process from refreshing mature gardens to
starting from scratch. Maureen works with homeowners to make their
dreams come true.

Please note: While
the library is being renovated, we are having are meetings at various
area locations. This month, we are at the College of Lake County,
Southlake Campus, Room V336 on the 3rd floor.

Date: Thursday, March 15, 2012

Time: Business meeting 9:30am-10:15am; Program 10:30am-11:30am

Location Address: 1120 South Milwaukee Avenue, Vernon Hills, IL 60061

A Message from our President, Linda Berryman

Can
you feel it? Spring is just around the corner. Yesterday was one of
those days when you could feel the change. I think Mark Twain describes
it best…”In the Spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six
different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours.” Amen!
Yesterday I sat on my porch swing with the sun shining, listening to
the birds sing and watching my snowman melt; then the wind began to blow
snapping the treetops back and forth; and by late afternoon snow flakes
were spitting from a darkened sky onto the ground. Yep! Spring is all
about change, the good, the bad, and the ugly!

Right
now in the garden club, it is all about good changes. The first change
I want to remind you about is the change in location again this month
for our March 15th meeting. We will meet at the College of Lake
County’s South campus on Milwaukee Avenue just north of Olde Half Day
Road. When you enter the building, turn to your right, take the
elevator in front of you up to the third floor. We will meet in room
V336 just ahead of you on the right when you step off the elevator.
Sharon Chamberlain has scheduled a guest speaker who will, of course,
talk about change, big or small in our gardens. Maureen DiRienzo, a
landscape designer from Buffalo Grove will ask the question “Is It Time
To Redo Your Garden?” I look forward to listening to her ideas. I’m
sure like myself, you’ve been finding yourself looking out the window at
the brown barren yard, and thinking where will I put my shovel first,
come that first warm day in my gardening garb.

Oh…gardening
garb! The LGC can help you make a change there too! I’m so very
excited to share with you the hippest, newest gardening attire in… dare I
say it… all Chicagoland! Member Hazel Weaver has brought to market
articles of clothing, accessories, and much more with the beautiful
Lincolnshire Garden Club trillium design by member Connie Conklin. Take
a look at all the wonderful items you can purchase by going to our
websitewww.lincolnshiregardenclub.com
There you will click the “Shopping” yellow button, and you are on your
way to sporting some of the coolest garden garb around. Want to see
some sample items before you buy? Come to the March 15th meeting, and
you can see some samples on our most fashionable LGC models!

See you there!

Benefit News

Reminder

Club member benefit donations are due by FRIDAY, MARCH 23. Please contact Kathleen Young-Perkins (847-821-9889) regarding your gift as early
as possible this month. The benefit committee needs to know what items
to expect so that they can plan accordingly. Benefit categories,
listed below, may provide some ideas for those of you who are still
deciding on what to donate:

Get
your tickets while they are still available for this not-to-be-missed
event! Take advantage of our special deal for members - four tickets
for only $120. The benefit ticket order form can be found on our website or contact Rick Sanders (webmaster@lincolnshiregardenclub.com) for details.

Allocations Committee’s Recommendations for 2012

This
year, the Lincolnshire Garden Club received 13 proposals asking for a
total of $31,031 in grants. The Allocations Committee* applied six
criteria in deciding which proposals to accept and in what amount. The
criteria were established to focus proposals and provide a method to
fairly evaluate them.

The six criteria were:

How many people will benefit from the project, directly and indirectly?

Where do those people live/work? (What proportion are Lincolnshire residents?)

Can the project be split and done in stages if we are unable to fund the entire request?

What resources will the organization use for this project? (Beyond LGC funding.)

How will costs be managed to ensure the most impact?

How/will the Garden Club’s award be publicly recognized/acknowledged?

Nine Awardees

1

Chicago Botanic Garden

$1,000

National Tallgrass Prairie Seed Bank

2

Eagle Scout/Troop 78

$ 500

Renovation of Brushwood garden

3

Daniel Wright Jr. High

$ 250

Native trees on school grounds (3 trees)

4

Friends of Ryerson Woods

$1,000

Plant material for renovation of Brushwood garden

5

Habitat for Humanity, Lake Co.

$ 500

Gardening Together Program

6

Lake Co. Forest Preserves

$ 500

Planting bed renovation, Welcome Center

7

Liberty Prairie Conservancy

$1,000

Exhibit booth for Conservation@Home

8

U of I Extension MG Program

$ 1,000

Sustainable Education Edible Display Garden

9

Vernon Area Library

$ 1,750

Building’s S and SE corner planting renovation

Total:

$ 7,500

On
March 1, the LGC Board approved the Committee’s recommendations for
members’ approval, which means Garden Club members will be asked to
approve the recommendations at the March meeting. Awards will be given
to recipients in May.

If
approved, the new “grand total” amount that the Lincolnshire Garden
Club has given to our community, from 1974 to 2012, will be just shy of
$223,000!

“Look
Who’s Budding Now” is a spotlight on our new Garden Club members. This
month we talk with Barb Tolbert. Barb settled down in Vernon Hills
after years of traveling all over the country as an account manager for
Takeda. She and her husband, John, a project manager for IDEX Holdings
Inc., have 3 children: Jack, 15, is a sophomore at Stevenson, and 10
year old twins, Kyle and Courtney, are 4th graders at Half Day. They
love the outdoors, (they are currently feeling quite cheated by this
year’s winter) and have a second home in Green Lake, Wisconsin.

How long have you and your family lived in Vernon Hills?

We moved here 20 years ago from Virginia due to a job transfer.

What do you like about Vernon Hills?

When
we moved here, it was a new neighborhood. The entire area has really
developed over the years, and I love the proximity to shops and
restaurants and everything you could want. And the area is very
kid-friendly. Our kids have so many friends in the area.

What made you decide to join the Garden Club?

Linda
Berryman invited me to the benefit last year, and I found so many
people I already knew. And, I love gardening. I have a vegetable
garden here and a shade garden at my home in Green Lake.

Has it been what you expected it to be?

Yes. The theory of it is awesome, and I’m so happy to be a part of it. I love getting gardening advice.

What is the biggest challenge you face in your own garden?

Here
my vegetable garden is tiered, so it’s difficult keeping the plants
healthy especially mid to late summer. I need more time to tend to it.
And in Green Lake, my biggest challenge is the deer especially since we
are not there every day to keep an eye on things.

Has your experience with the Garden Club changed the way you look at your garden?

Yes. I am a lot more excited about the possibilities for my garden. And, I’m looking forward to getting more educated.

Of what help could the Garden Club be to you?

I’m looking forward to getting advice about the kind of garden I want to have.

Who is your biggest gardening inspiration?

My
father-in-law, Stan, has a vegetable garden in Michigan. When he and
his wife are in the garden, you can see the positive impact it has on
them.

What is your favorite plant?

I have several – hydrangeas, roses, daffodils and tulips.

Is there one tip you can share with us on your gardening techniques?

Keep trying until it works. When it works, step back and enjoy.

Thank
you for spending time with us. And, stay tuned for more introductions
to our new members as we take a peek into how their gardens grow.

New Buttons on our Web Site

by Webmaster Rick Sanders

We now have a series of special function buttons on the home page of our web site www.LincolnshireGardenClub.com to make it easier to access important Club information.

The Lake County Forest Preserves District has a great web site (www.lakecountyspecies.org)
where people can go to identify over 400 plant and animal species,
native and non-native, found in Lake County, Illinois. Below is a
picture of what the web site looks like.

Zone Change: What does it Mean for Gardeners?

By Beth Botts, reprinted article from the Chicago Tribune

The gardener who often has wished her climate were just a little bit warmer may be getting her wish. Or not.

The
U.S. Department of Agriculture recently released a new version of its
Plant Hardiness Zone Map, the first major revision since 1990. This map,
which divides the U.S. into 13 zones based on how cold their winters
can be expected to get, is a tool used by gardeners and farmers to
estimate which perennial plants and shrubs and trees are likely to
survive where.

The
new map shifts about half of the continental U.S. a half-zone higher,
toward the warmer end of the scale. Chicago is now in Zone 6a, up from
5b. But only the city proper; most Cook County suburbs, like the
majority of the northern half of the state, are in 5b, up from 5a. The
northwest corner of Illinois, like southwestern Wisconsin, in now in
Zone 5a, up from 4b.

That
doesn't necessarily mean those places have actually gotten warmer in
any way that would affect a plant. The USDA says this map was created by
methods so different from the last version that it's not possible to
tell to what extent the shift reflects a change in climate or simply
better measurement and understanding of existing conditions.

The
long-awaited new version is "the most sophisticated Plant Hardiness
Zone Map yet for the United States," said Catherine Woteki, USDA
undersecretary for research, education and economics, in a press
release. It is based on 30 years of weather measurements instead of 13,
collected from almost 8,000 weather stations, and incorporates technical
advances in computers, software and global positioning systems. Other
conditions beyond minimum winter temperatures are now factored in, such
as elevation, the closeness of large bodies of water and the urban heat
island effect.

Though it will be reproduced widely in garden books and magazines, the new map
is interactive and designed to be used on the web. A gardener can
input a ZIP code to see exactly where his garden falls and, with a
broadband connection, can click down to intricate detail--to see, for
example , that Oak Park now is a Zone 6a but LaGrange is 5b.

The
zone information in nursery catalogs and garden books should still
apply: If a plant has proved to be hardy in the old zone 5, it should be
hardy in places that are labeled zone 5 on the new map. But no
gardener should take the map as a guarantee. USDA officials are careful
to point out that the map is based on averages, which incorporate colder
extremes as well as warmer ones, so gardeners still need to be prepared
for weather surprises. It's also still important to learn the
peculiarities of your own site, which may include spots that provide
different conditions for plants because they are sunnier or shadier,
windier or more sheltered, higher or lower.

Many
people have seized on the shift of zones in the new map as obvious
evidence of climate change. But USDA spokeswoman Kim Kaplan said the map
"is simply not a good instrument" for making that assumption because
it's not an apples-to-apples comparison with the old map.

In
any case, the plant hardiness map is not about climate, the large,
long-term trends that show up only when data from many years are
analyzed to shake out the noise of short-term weather variations.
Plants, like people, live in short-term, variable weather; this map is
an estimating tool based on average weather.

Risk-averse
gardeners always can avoid worry by choosing plants known to be hardy a
zone or more colder. Risk-loving gardeners will take the new hardiness
zones as a dare and keep trying to overwinter plants that are supposed
to be too tender, just as they always have.

Going Green. . . our commitment to ecologically friendly recycling

Beginning January 1, 2012, the Illinois Electronic Products Recycling and Reuse Act
landfill ban for certain electronic devices took effect. Electronic
items such as televisions, monitors, computers and printers are some of
the most common items that are no longer accepted in regular trash.
Click on the above link to read up on other items that are now no
longer accepted.

See The Village of Lincolnshire Spring 2012 Newsletter page 6 for a list of a number of spring cleanup suggestions and events

SWALCO’s (Solid Waste Agency of Lake County) Recycle & Redirect Guide
provides numerous tips on properly disposing of an assortment of
unwanted items. Take a look at the list, there are many items that you
might not think of recycling.

SWALCO
hosts household chemical waste event twice a month at its Gurnee
location, 1311 N. Estes St. The dates for the next three are Saturday
March 10th, Monday, March 26th and Saturday, April 14th. Items that are
accepted at these collections include the following: CFL bulbs,
unwanted prescription and over-the-counter medicines and supplements
(people and pet), household cleaners, gasoline, garden chemicals,
pesticides, oil-based paints (no latex) and varnishes, as well as other
household chemicals. Appointments are required for these events and you
can schedule one by clinking here.

We are always looking for new ideas and suggestions to be
ecologically friendly, so please send them to Jeanne at newsletter@lincolnshiregardenclub.com.New ideas will
be highlighted in one edition of the Newsletter and then moved our new
Recycling section on the Lincolnshire Garden Club website (www.lincolnshiregardenclub.com/recyling).This sight
will include, among other things, upcoming special recycling events and a list
of recycling locations for specific items.